Look at the Stars
by Shootingstar7123
Summary: Revamped, some parts entirely rewritten! Elanor Gamgee worries about her father and deals with her own nightmares. AU.


Disclaimer:  
I don't own Frodo,  
I don't own Sam,  
I'm not a Tolkien,  
But I wish I am!.  
Yes, its Elanor, my favorite character! (And my favorite name.) AU. ..  
She knew what kept her father out of the house for hours. She wasn't supposed to know. The war of the ring was supposed to be no more than a bedtime story for her, but it wasn't. Her parents didn't want to know, would never know. She wouldn't let them.  
She had always had terrible dreams, even in the most tender years. But she had ceased telling her parents of them long ago. They had been filled with horrors from her father's travels, things there would be no way for her to know. At an early age she realized how her dream-telling had worried her parents so she pretended it no longer happened. They now thought of it as a phase, if they thought of it at all.   
But something was bothering her father. More and more he had been leaving home for short journeys of a day or two. He went to the sea. If not to the sea, then anywhere, any hill, any tower he could view it from. She had always understood her father intimately; it was just natural for her to know his feelings. And on these journeys he was more at peace, and more in turmoil than he ever was at home. He always took the red book with him.  
One morning, he did not. She stole away into the study and took the book down from its high shelf. In it she read of things she already knew--she had dreamed them.   
She realized that these were not her dreams- not her own mind's creation, but the dreams of her father. She was aghast to imagine that he was in so much pain. But what could she do? If she told, it would worry her parents more. She wondered what caused such awful dreams. It took some thinking, but she finally came up with an association--the dreams had only started after her uncle Frodo left. Even though she was very young at the time, she remembered him, her father's best friend, a sad and lonely man, not old, but weary. He had sailed over the sea long ago. And, from the look of it, her father wanted to follow.  
A tear came into her eye. She squeezed it out when she shut her eyes. "Please, whatever gods there may be, don't let my father sail away! I... I love him too much." Tears were flowing unchecked from her cheeks now. She stood, and made a decision. She ran out of the house, her long blond curls bouncing behind her. "Elanor, darling, where are you going?" her mother's call came as she closed the door behind her.  
She ran to the stables and jumped on the fastest pony they had. As she rode out of town she heard Uncle Merry calling out,"Elanor? Where are you going in such a hurry?" She didn't answer.  
She rode out of the shire and into the old woods, the path her father took on his big adventure. "I have never been out of the shire before," she thought with a queer feeling. The trees suddenly seemed closer and darker. She rode on a bit before realizing something. "I am lost. I am lost in the woods and will not find my way home." The tears began to flow again down her cheeks. She dismounted from her horse and sat on the ground. She was not going home. Indeed, she had no idea which way was home.  
Suddenly she heard a rustling in the bushes nearby. She jumped up, remembering the terrors of her father's tales. "Would that I had some sort of weapon," she thought frantically. "All the people in the stories had weapons." She grabbed a branch from the forest floor and thought,"This will have to do..." And at that moment someone began to emerge from the bushes while Elanor stood petrified. "Elanor?" said a familiar voice. Her father emerged from the bushes with a bewildered look. "What are you doing so far from home? You could have been lost forever here!" She dropped the stick and jumped into her father's arms. "Daddy, don't sail away on the sea! I can't live without you," she sobbed into his shoulder. "Is that why you rode all the way out here?" he asked. "Don't worry. I won't leave you." They both mounted her pony. "Don't enter the Old Forest ever again without my help! You might have been lost forever." He guided the horse on.  
They came to a clearing. "This isn't the Shire," Elanor said. "Don't you know the way home?" Her father replied, "I wanted to show you something first. He lead her on a bit farther, until they reached a cliff. Below them was the sea. "I wanted you to see it," he said. They looked out upon it in the darkening light. The sun fell below the horizon of water as they stood silent.  
When he finally stirred, it was dark. He pointed upwards. "Look at those stars, Elanor. Those are the same stars that are seen anywhere on the earth. Even Mr.Frodo sees these stars. I don't need to cross the sea to know Mr.Frodo loves me. I can look at the stars and I am sure. You can be sure too." He looked at his daughter, and they headed towards home.  
She was yawning as they pulled into the stable. When they opened the gate, Elanor was pulled into the loving arms of her mother. No words were spoken, but more understanding went between them in that moment than any other time. The three of them went inside, and got into bed. That night, for the first time in years, she had a dreamless sleep. She, and her father, were content. 


End file.
